Posted 09 March 2012 - 11:34 AM

Imagine turning down Liverpool because you were making good money playing soccer here.

There was a salary ceiling in British football, of 12 pounds per week! With an exchange rate at that time of $2.85, the most a player could be paid was $34! Not enough to move to a post-war UK, which had rationing into the 1950s. My parents came the opposite way! http://www.spartacus...o.uk/Fwages.htm

We are good enough to beat the best teams, and bad enough to lose to the worst teams.

Posted 09 March 2012 - 12:26 PM

IIRC, there was a salary ceiling in British football, of 18 pounds per week! With an exchange rate at that time of $5, the most a player could be paid was $90!

Jake,

Please share more of your personal experiences of playing soccer at during this period.

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 02:08 PM

All in due course! The gist of my comment (now edited!) was that playing for Liverpool would not have brought any financial benefit, compared with an average US industrial salary at the time.

from other things ive read all sports were typically like that. many athletes played during the season, and then had a job during the offseason. some even had day jobs during the season. the only sport where some players lived on full salaries was baseball